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You know, with the way our current ISPs treat us, I''m dying to see the day Google and Amazon spread out, beat the living shit out of them then bury them.
This is the problem that people seem to have. Nobody can figure out why there aren't 30 choices for fiber in their town, or why everyone isn't putting fiber in the ground as quickly as possible to get everyone super high speeds.
Sometimes I think that internet should be like a utility where people just pay a tax then the people can vote on if they want to upgrade or not. And everyone in the town gets the same price / same service. After all that is basically what all the unlimited no caps people argue is how it really works right?
But due to a specific experience I am not sold on that idea. I went to a town in MI called Wyandotte and they had the local government running a cable service. I looked over their rates and speeds and it was interesting to note that they had pretty much copied the cable providers. They had similar prices and different plans / tiers. So maybe in reality governments cant run internet any cheaper or better than the cable cos can.
Verizon and Comcast have beautiful business models.. the kind that only crooked capitalists could come up with:
1) Offer terrible services
2) Refuse to offer better services
3) Sue all newcomers into extinction so no other options exist
4) Pay off government officials in the form of campaign donations to fend off anti-trust lawsuits.
One big issue that you totally skipped over in your argument about more companies/choices, they get sued. New startup wants to build in a major ISP's neighborhood? Lawsuit. Municipal internet? Lawsuit. City-wide free wifi? Lawsuit.
Yes, but then they kept opening up new markets, slowly. I guess now the expansion well halt.
Didn't they basically say this a long time ago?
I would still take my Optimum Online over these two.
LOL
My electric utility built out fiber to all homes in my capitol city.
Guess what?
Time Warner turned around and bought legislation making it illegal for public utilities to "compete" in the same "market" as private corporations. All that beautiful high-speed fiber? Permanently and forever dark thanks to lobbying.
It'd be more correct to say no one wants to overpay for it. Other countries have fiber to the home for far less than it costs even in US metropolitan areas.
Stop defending shitty ISP's and their greed. Especially since much of the infrastructure they do own was paid for or indirectly subsidized with public money.
Yea ... I bought a crayola box of 64 crayons and one was broken ... greedy Crayola. I want the 4-pack made by Carlos since the government didn't buy the cardboard box for him. Ignorance!
I don't recall any of my equipment ever being funded by any part of any government or public fundraisers. I remember replacing thousands of dollars of equipment on multiple towers many nights at terrible o'clock. I remember losing 35 grand worth of equipment due to volatile electric service that was supposedly maintained for the public and by the government.
All I have seen is that people want everything everywhere and the government said "We'll make a PSA!" and small WISPs are expected to fork out a few hundred grand for people to watch porno and download illegal stuff?
As a kid I wanted that stuff, but as I became an adult I realized I had to pay for what I got. As a business man I expect people to pay for what they get. If they want to spend 20 bucks a month to watch online videos while saving over a hundred bucks and my infrastructure can supply it to the public while saving their cost of copper wiring, paid porn, and other misc stuff that billionaire companies are able to offer ... somebody had better pay ME.
I cover ~50 miles of wireless service without running a single wire TTH. So anyone that wants to dig a 50 mile trench and pay my 5000/month bill can have at it.
So don't confuse one ISP with capitalism and unfair treatment, there are good guys trying but still must adhere to federal regulations an stupid practices.
Verizon and Comcast have beautiful business models.. the kind that only crooked capitalists could come up with:
1) Offer terrible services
2) Refuse to offer better services
3) Sue all newcomers into extinction so no other options exist
4) Pay off government officials in the form of campaign donations to fend off anti-trust lawsuits.
I do not think that you are entirely wrong Exavior, but I also think that you are missing a few things in your analysis.
First and foremost, as other users have pointed out as well, the cost of building out infrastructure is tax-deductible for the business. This is similar to a software developer buying a new server for their business. They have made an investment in the future operation of their business which reduces their tax liability over a preset amount of time (depreciation).
Second, the companies do not have to pay up front for all of the infrastructure development. Essentially, some of it may be done in cash, some may be through borrowing, and some may be slated for development, but not actually paid for until that future time at which they begin construction. These things factor into the time-value of money equation.
Third, no ISP in the history of ISPs as far as I know, has attempted to make back the cost of infrastructure deployment immediately. Even the cable companies that are now ISPs built their infrastructure over time, following these same depreciation curves that are still used today, and financed in the same ways that they are today, with the intention of making back the money over several years' time. Once they are beyond that point, it is essentially pure profit until they need to address the infrastructure again.
The long and short of it is this: if Company X can borrow enough money to expand their infrastructure, then charge a monthly fee for service that is enough to cover the costs of repaying that money, plus interest, and whatever the day-to-day costs of operation are, while still leaving them some extra in their pockets, then that is a profitable endeavor. For example, Comcast made approximately $64 billion in 2013, of which around $6.5 billion was profit. They made money.
I think the issue at stake is less about whether or not the business model is profitable and more about how profitable it can be. Everyone, especially the Wall Street power guys, are concerned with expediency at this point. They all want to make their money right away. Making money over time is considered a loss if they can make more somewhere else in the short term, but that is just as unsustainable as a Ponzi scheme.
Where's the "socialist-smoking-pot" icon?
My FiOS 75/35 clocks in at 84/38. My unlimited calling on my land-line does exactly what it's supposed to do, all for $100 a month. Would I want it cheaper? Of course, who wouldn't. Are they a business that stifles competition to make more money and eventually try to rule the world? Probably. But if it wasn't for Capitalists civilization would be pretty crappy. People work harder when they know they are working towards bettering their lot in life. Socialist never seem to figure out that whole human-spirit thing.
At a conference this week, Verizons CFO announced that the company will fulfill already contracted franchise agreements, but would not seek any further expansion of its FiOS network.
Where's the "socialist-smoking-pot" icon?
My FiOS 75/35 clocks in at 84/38. My unlimited calling on my land-line does exactly what it's supposed to do, all for $100 a month. Would I want it cheaper? Of course, who wouldn't. Are they a business that stifles competition to make more money and eventually try to rule the world? Probably. But if it wasn't for Capitalists civilization would be pretty crappy. People work harder when they know they are working towards bettering their lot in life. Socialist never seem to figure out that whole human-spirit thing.
I'd be happy with the cost of service if there wasn't artificially tiered speed levels for what amounts to exactly the same thing. If I get the 5Mbps cable service or the 105Mbps service is there anything different between the two other than typing in a command at an office which artificially throttles me? No, there's not. The same cable that brings me 5Mbps can also bring me 105Mbps, there's zero difference on a hardware side. If it becomes a saturation issue then handle that as such and throttle the connections WHEN there becomes a saturation issue, then the onus of the quality of your network goes on the company not some abstract notion of the top 2% of users.I am not surprised at all, the issue is cost. Everyone wants 1Gbps fiber to their home, but nobody wants to actually pay for it. So there is no reason for anyone to actually build it out.
This...I am not going to get into the political side but you know that Verizon took tons of money from the government to do these projects, over promised under delivered. If you happen to be one of the lucky guys who lives in a competitive market with FIOS and cable and good DSL options great for you but for the rest of FIOS turned off the pipe and said forget running it if the government is paying for most of it.
So, how do we switch from the FCC to a new regulation provider?